Ford USA - Ranger and Bronco Return?

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If it won't fit in a Transit Connect, you wouldn't use a Ranger for it. You'd get either an F-150 or a Transit.

Question would have to be, how does Ford make the bog-standard Transit cool enough to appeal to truck buyers?
 
What point? I'm quite sure Ford Australia brands it as a Ford Ranger.

The Ford Explorer Sport Trac you're talking about was discontinued in 2010. Whilst the Ford Ranger i linked is the Current model available in the AUDM Market.

While, indeed, the T6 has nothing to do with the SportTrac, Omnis does have a point. The Explorer SportTrac was simply too close in size and design to the F150 to survive the market... and it had much less utility.

Granted, the Ranger, with its 1.3 ton cargo capacity, is much more useful than the SportTrac, it's the same banana... the F150 is infinitely more capable and desirable, and all Ford would achieve is to spend double on federalization and production to achieve slightly higher sales numbers.
 
What point? I'm quite sure Ford Australia brands it as a Ford Ranger.

The Ford Explorer Sport Trac you're talking about was discontinued in 2010. Whilst the Ford Ranger i linked is the Current model available in the AUDM Market.

And if they brought that very truck here, it'd not be a Ranger, it'd be a SportTrac. See? Same banana.

Question would have to be, how does Ford make the bog-standard Transit cool enough to appeal to truck buyers?

Cool truck buyers want F-150s. They listen to country music and roll coal on huge tires. The transit and transit connect are for businesses and small contractors, as the Ranger and S10 and all those small trucks were. And they do the Ranger's job better.
 
And if they brought that very truck here, it'd not be a Ranger, it'd be a SportTrac. See? Same banana.



Cool truck buyers want F-150s. They listen to country music and roll coal on huge tires. The transit and transit connect are for businesses and small contractors, as the Ranger and S10 and all those small trucks were. And they do the Ranger's job better.

How do you "roll coal" without a diesel?

On another note, I called the dealership that @Slash posted and as expected they said Ford hasn't offered a manual in years. I explained to them that a man swears he saw a few trucks with a manual tranny back in June and she (I believe her name was Amanda, maybe Ashley?) said he must've been mistaken. I wouldn't be surprised to see Dodge drop the manual tranny option in the 2500 and 3500 before too long, unfortunately.
 
Oh pardon me. F-150, F-series, full-size pickups. Same thing.
 
I wouldn't be surprised to see Dodge drop the manual tranny option in the 2500 and 3500 before too long, unfortunately.

I found that the take rate is about 5% on the manual trans in the Dodge HD. However, I've also seen that it has a 85-90% take rate for the diesel engine, so there's still a few being sold. It seems like if they've kept it for this long past Ford and GM, and with people still buying them, they will probably still sell them for the near future at least.
 
I think Ford originally discontinued the Ranger due to high cost. New, small Ranger would have cost as much, or almost as much as the F-150 to build. Also according to Ford, the new Rangers seen overseas were too close in size to F-150 to be sold in the U.S. Market.

Building new Rangers would go against their explanation for its discontinuation at the time....... but of course, Mulally was behind the wheel at Ford then.

I like compact trucks, and while I'm guessing that the Ranger compact pickup would come back eventually, I'd be very surprised if they came back this soon.
 
You don't like compact trucks enough to buy one, though. Right? Because they're not coming back until then.
 
You don't like compact trucks enough to buy one, though. Right? Because they're not coming back until then.
Like with the decision by the Ford Motor Company, not if it's going to be priced like a F-150, and came with similar fuel efficiency. I hope Ecoboost is a game changer, but long term reliability is a wait & see on that one.
 
You don't like compact trucks enough to buy one, though. Right? Because they're not coming back until then.
I have to agree, I like them enough but only to buy a used one. I've thought about it simply because there's so many used ones around and you can get a lot more utility for your ~$5k than buying a similarly priced used car/hatchback and without giving up too much fuel economy. I just don't foresee myself ever being in the market for a new compact pickup. With how much they'd cost I'd rather just buy a 2 year old F150 if I wanted a truck.
 
If the US ranger was comparable to the World Ranger and/or the F-Series (of course, they could call it the F-50 and sell it to the brainless AND boost that "F-series" sales number they love to tout), but between 15-20k, they would sell. The problems of the old market is that, as everyone has pointed out, it was oversaturated, but it also did not evolve and therefore kept much of the same equipment for long periods, if not for it's lifespan, and the overall economy changed, favoring a full shift to full-sized trucks. Would something the size of a US Ranger/S-10/old Frontier be build efficiently for a 15-20k price point? I dunno, but what I do know is that even if they sold, they need to be limited in production, that would require thought though, and it's apparent the US automakers are prone to many braindead moves.
 
How do you "roll coal" without a diesel?

On another note, I called the dealership that @Slash posted and as expected they said Ford hasn't offered a manual in years. I explained to them that a man swears he saw a few trucks with a manual tranny back in June and she (I believe her name was Amanda, maybe Ashley?) said he must've been mistaken. I wouldn't be surprised to see Dodge drop the manual tranny option in the 2500 and 3500 before too long, unfortunately.
I'm just going off what was told to me so I really don't know what they had :lol:
 
You should probably take most of the things people tell you with a slash of salt.
 
I can't see Ford bringing another Ranger stateside for a simple reason. Look at the Chevrolet Colorado which will be one of the Ranger's biggest competitors. Now think about the dimensions of it. The Colorado is literally the size of previous full sized trucks. It also happens to cost as much as a full sized truck. Why would most people even bother to buy something that costs as much as full sized pickup but isn't as functional? The Colorado's biggest attribute is the diesel that should be coming out soon, but since the Ram already has a diesel option, it should only be a matter of time before both GM and Ford have diesel half ton trucks.
 
I'm doubting the validity of a 2013/2014 Ford truck with a manual, considering they aren't even offered on the chassis cabs (450/550) or even on the large trucks (650/750).

Can't you just put the manual gearbox on? Or do you mean the warranty validity?
 
Can't you just put the manual gearbox on? Or do you mean the warranty validity?

From the factory is what I mean. If they had one configured and EPA tested for use with the current diesel, then its only logical they would offer it in all the trucks to recoup the costs.
 
From the factory is what I mean. If they had one configured and EPA tested for use with the current diesel, then its only logical they would offer it in all the trucks to recoup the costs.

I see now... you don't have the manual diesel there as standard :)
 
http://www.goauto.com.au/mellor/mellor.nsf/story2/4ADC2872EADA5F8BCA257E62003C4C85

Ford_Ranger_Large.jpg


Ford_Ranger_Main.jpg
 
Wait, what? They're throwing the lovely shift linkage out for a cable? Ew.

Also, the 3.2 is in bad need of reprogramming. Having 197 horses at 3k rpm and absolutely none at 4k is no fun in an era where everything else revs its balls off at 5k.
 
But wasn't ranger supposed to be a small truck, powered by i4 and V6 as top of the line model? So this one should have the 2.3 EB as well as 2.7 EB.. and perhaps 3.5 EB. Not to mention only two doors.
 
There is no "small truck" any longer. It's either the full size trucks offered by Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Nissan and Toyota, or the mid size truck, of which in the US it's either Toyota, Nissan or Chevy.
 
So basically there's no reasonably priced entry-level option..

Unless you want a Brazilian Fiat Strada or a Chinese-built clone of a twenty-year old Japanese model... no.

Global market pick-ups are now comfortably mid-sized. Still a far cry from humongozoids like the new F150, but nowhere near as dainty as 80's and 90's compacts.
 
The BT-50 and Ranger, Titan, Colorado are still huge. I get people asking me, are Mazda going to make a smaller ute like the old B2500. These things are bigger than K-series Chevys.
 
A Ranger sized truck with an inline 4 diesel and 6 speed manual would be an awesome daily driver.

This.

If Ford came out with this and it wasn't ugly (Also not severely penalized for getting a diesel) I'd seriously consider this as a DD.

It sounds as though finding a used Ranger is the best option though.
 
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